Tutorial for Text¶

Add a simple one line text entity by factory function add_text().

import ezdxf

# TEXT is a basic entity and is supported by every DXF version.
# Argument setup=True for adding standard linetypes and text styles.
doc = ezdxf.new('R12', setup=True)
msp = doc.modelspace()

# use set_pos() for proper TEXT alignment:
# The relations between DXF attributes 'halign', 'valign',
# 'insert' and 'align_point' are tricky.
msp.add_text("A Simple Text").set_pos((2, 3), align='MIDDLE_RIGHT')

# Using a text style
msp.add_text("Text Style Example: Liberation Serif",
             dxfattribs={
                 'style': 'LiberationSerif',
                 'height': 0.35}
             ).set_pos((2, 6), align='LEFT')

doc.saveas("simple_text.dxf")

Valid text alignments for argument align in Text.set_pos():

Vert/Horiz	Left	Center	Right
Top	`TOP_LEFT`	`TOP_CENTER`	`TOP_RIGHT`
Middle	`MIDDLE_LEFT`	`MIDDLE_CENTER`	`MIDDLE_RIGHT`
Bottom	`BOTTOM_LEFT`	`BOTTOM_CENTER`	`BOTTOM_RIGHT`
Baseline	`LEFT`	`CENTER`	`RIGHT`

Special alignments are ALIGNED and FIT, they require a second alignment point, the text is justified with the vertical alignment Baseline on the virtual line between these two points.

Alignment	Description
`ALIGNED`	Text is stretched or compressed to fit exactly between p1 and p2 and the text height is also adjusted to preserve height/width ratio.
`FIT`	Text is stretched or compressed to fit exactly between p1 and p2 but only the text width is adjusted, the text height is fixed by the height attribute.
`MIDDLE`	also a special adjustment, but the result is the same as for `MIDDLE_CENTER`.

Standard Text Styles¶

Setup some standard text styles and linetypes by argument setup=True:

doc = ezdxf.new('R12', setup=True)

Replaced all proprietary font declarations in setup_styles() (ARIAL, ARIAL_NARROW, ISOCPEUR and TIMES) by open source fonts, this is also the style name (e.g. {'style': 'OpenSans-Italic'}):

New Text Style¶

Creating a new text style is simple:

doc.styles.new('myStandard', dxfattribs={'font' : 'OpenSans-Regular.ttf'})

But getting the correct font name is often not that simple, especially on Windows. This shows the required steps to get the font name for Open Sans:

open font folder c:\windows\fonts

select and open the font-family Open Sans

right-click on Open Sans Standard and select Properties

on top of the first tab you see the font name: 'OpenSans-Regular.ttf'

The style name has to be unique in the DXF document, else ezdxf will raise an DXFTableEntryError exception. To replace an existing entry, delete the existing entry by doc.styles.remove(name), and add the replacement entry.

3D Text¶

It is possible to place the 2D Text entity into 3D space by using the OCS, for further information see: Tutorial for OCS/UCS Usage.